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Articles by Kyle Amato
REVIEW: Final Destination: Bloodlines (2025) dir. Zach Lipovsky & Adam Stein
There is a purity to the divine carnage of the Final Destination franchise. Each film follows the same structure, with a few twists here and there. Someone has a vision of impending destruction, they avoid this fate, then the invisible hand of death continually reaches out in an attempt to kill everyone in the most convoluted and horrifying ways possible.
BUFF 25 DISPATCH, PART TWO: Shorts, Betrothals, and Lycanthropes
The 2025 Boston Underground Film Festival ran from Wednesday, 3/19 through Sunday, 3/23 at the Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, and the Hassle’s intrepid writers Oscar Goff, Alexis den Boggende, and Kyle Amato were on the scene. Click here to catch up with the Hassle’s first dispatch from BUFF, and watch this space for our team’s continuing coverage! THE DUNWICH HORRORS dir.
REVIEW: The Garfield Movie (2024) dir. Mark Dindal
The Garfield Movie is lousy. Did you expect anything else? Maybe the exact nature of its lousiness will surprise you. Opening with a shocking number of production company logos, The Garfield Movie takes away most of Garfield’s defining misanthropic traits – he’s fine with Odie, he speaks in tones other than a bored drawl, he moves with urgency, he has genuine empathy, and he doesn’t even kick Nermal when presented with the opportunity, which many of us would take.
REVIEW: Babes (2024) dir. Pamela Adlon
Though we’re still feeling the effects of last year’s strikes (which, to clarify, were good and this is worth what they fought for), the first half of 2024 has been blessed enough to have actual comedies in theaters. Lisa Frankenstein, Problemista, Drive-Away Dolls, Stress Positions, and now the directorial debut of Pamela Adlon, Babes, are all comedies with jokes that have punchlines, not just weird awkward silences or fake pathos that feels unearned.
INTERVIEW: ‘DOGFIGHT’ Director Nancy Savoca and Producer Rich Guay
In honor of the Criterion release of Dogfight, an underseen romantic gem starring River Phoenix and Lili Taylor, I spoke with the film’s director Nancy Savoca and her husband and producer Rich Guay! BOSTON HASSLE: I love Dogfight. I got to see it a few years ago when TCM was doing a program highlighting female directors. My friend saw it on the schedule and recommended I watch it and I really enjoyed it. NANCY SAVOCA: I’m so glad. BH: When I saw it was coming out on Criterion I was thrilled.
REVIEW: Challengers (2024) dir. Luca Gudagnino
Rightfully the only film people are going to be talking about this spring, Challengers is a thrilling, sexy character study about the only good sports: tennis and kissing. Zendaya, Josh O’Connor, and Mike Faist are all at the top of their game, cementing their places in the new generation of movie stars by making an actual film for adults that isn’t totally idiotic and doesn’t look like crap.
REVIEW: SPY x FAMILY CODE: White (2024) dir. Takashi Katagiri
Since its manga debut in 2019 and subsequent anime debut in 2022, SPY x FAMILY (written and illustrated by Tatsuya Endo) has become a global phenomenon. Half espionage drama and half silly hijinks, the series focuses on a fake family composed of a spy, an assassin, and a telepath, navigating their secret lives during a Cold War-esque conflict.
REVIEW: The Beast (2024) dir. Bertrand Bonello
In a strange, totally implausible future where climate change has ravaged the planet and AI seems to have taken charge of humanity, Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) is undergoing a procedure to “purify her DNA” by stripping her past lives of all strong emotions. To do this she must sleep in a bath full of black goo while previous versions of herself in 1910 and 2014 have meaningful encounters with a man named Louis (George MacKay), who has a habit of coming into her life at crucial inflection points.
'Drive-Away Dolls' - queer comical road trip has drive
The film world was given a strange shock when Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen announced they'd be splitting up, each tackling their own passion projects. There seems to be no bad blood (Ethan was spotted attending the New York Film Festival premiere of "The Tragedy of Macbeth"), but the end of their partnership still feels significant. Together they directed some of the greatest American films of all time, but what was so important to them that they'd go their separate ways?
REVIEW: Orion and the Dark (2024) dir. Sean Charmatz
Dreamworks and Charlie Kaufman may seem an odd pairing, but this is technically the second animated film Kaufman has scripted, following 2015’s Anomalisa. Orion and the Dark is Kaufman in miniature, an existential crisis for kids told with a ’90s comic strip style. I’ve been less enthused with what we can generously call “his whole thing” than some, but Kaufman’s brand of malaise is tamped down by necessity.
PREVIEW: The Brattle’s (Some of) The Best of 2023!
It’s that time of year again: the studios have released their most prestigious offerings, Oscar nominations are imminent, and you’re about to realize (if you haven’t already) just how many movies you missed this year. Whether boning up for the awards-season blitzkrieg or simply looking to fill in your cultural gaps, catching up with a year’s worth of movies can be daunting. Thank god for the Brattle.
REVIEW: All of Us Strangers (2023) dir. Andrew Haigh
Andrew Haigh is best known for his stripped down gay romance Weekend and the bleak 45 Years, both films which use their dreary atmospheres to amplify the chamber piece feels. Haigh went bigger for Lean on Pete, a tricky film which I’ll defend, but he’s back in London for his latest. All of Us Strangers, much like Weekend, focuses on two gay men in a flat, but nothing is what it seems.
YEAR ENDER: Kyle Amato’s Top Ten Films of 2023
Kyle Amato is the calendar editor for Boston Hassle. He has been a staff writer since 2016. Before I go into film criticism hibernation and remerge just in time for Madame Web, I figured I could share my top ten films of 2023, a truly spectacular year for cinema. My full film watching breakdown is on my Medium page, full of too many horrors to take up Hassle bandwidth. Here’s to the new year! Just a classic bad vacation picture, more German than you could comprehend.
REVIEW: Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget (2023) dir. Sam Fell
In the grand modern tradition of decades-later sequels, Aardman animation has decided to franchise their greatest success, twenty-three years down the line. Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget can’t reach the heights of the original film, but it’s a fun, engaging story with plenty of claymation magic. Aardman’s commitment to non-verbal storytelling is one of its greatest assets, and this homage to Mission: Impossible and Bond movies has plenty of clever visual moments.
REVIEW: The Boy and the Heron (2023) dir. Hayao Miyazaki
The Boy and the Heron distinguishes itself instantly. The Studio Ghibli logo, featuring Totoro and pals, fades away, replaced by flames and a screeching air siren. We are in a nightmare, filled with ghostly impressions of people and one boy facing unimaginable loss. The nightmare breaks, giving way to Miyazaki’s latest dreamscape. The Boy and the Heron is another staggering achievement for the master of animation, but there is truly so much beneath the surface it’s impossible to feel all at once.
'The Substance' - Demi Moore wows in body image horror satire
Demi Moore tackles the role of a lifetime in "The Substance" (Mubi), directed by French provocateur Coralie Fargeat.
Review: The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023) dir. Francis Lawrence
What reason was there for a new Hunger Games film? Nostalgia for a decade ago, when YA reigned supreme just as Marvel was rising to power? A last-ditch attempt to wring some money out of a known property? The greatest question of all: why is The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes actually good? Why did they make a real movie for no reason?
REVIEW: Divinity (2023) dir. Eddie Alcazar
Writer-director Eddie Alcazar has crafted a brand new world with Divinity, a fascinating film that I’m not entirely sure is successful, but is fantastic to look at and appreciate. Alcazar takes the exact risks modern filmmaking should be taking, as does Steven Soderbergh, who funded the film and executive produced. In a strange future (or perhaps alternate universe), scientist Sterling Pierce (Scott Bakula) has devised a serum called “Divinity” that could make human beings immortal.
4K REVIEW: Showing Up (2023)
For my first new release 4K review I could not have picked a better film than Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up. While I generally focus on restorations and the work done to make them look as close to the original prints as possible, it’s nice to have a 4K for a new film with zero loss of quality or fidelity. A24’s release is a wonderful package celebrating an excellent film.
REVIEW: The Killer (2023) dir. David Fincher
Michael Fassbender emerges from his acting retirement, having mostly done race car driving since The Snowman and Dark Phoenix (wow, no wonder he dipped!), as a meticulous Smiths-loving hitman at the center of David Fincher’s latest film. The Killer follows the titular killer as his mechanical, passionless, life starts to fray, landing him in hot water with his boss and all his secrets at stake.
Hassle of Horror: The Hassle’s Halloween Staff Picks
Oscar Goff, Editor-in-Chief To me, Halloween is less a holiday than a semester, a portion of the year that begins on September 1, reaches a crescendo with the Coolidge Corner Theatre’s annual Halloween Marathon (which I have not missed since 2006, give or take a plague year), and doesn’t end—if it ever does end—until the candy runs out.
4K REVIEW: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)
The time has come for me to start dipping my toe into the world of 4K Ultra HD presentation. My collection is small but mighty, currently containing TÁR, Akira, Lost Highway, Wall-e, and, of course, all seven Chucky films and the first three Screams. While Blu-ray still remains the gold standard for viewing film at home, 4K is worth it for special films with great restorations, which, of course, includes Bride of Chucky. I’ll just buy a Blu-ray, but a 4K disc needs to be investigated.
CURTAIN RAISER: IFFBoston Fall Focus 2023
Features, Film, IFFBoston by Kyle Amato Everyone’s favorite mini film festival returns, packed with incredible new movies. IFFBoston Fall Focus 2023 takes place from this Thursday the 19th to Monday the 23rd at the Brattle Theatre, with a couple of bonuses before and after! As someone who’s been lucky to see some of these films at Sundance and TIFF, I wanted to give a quick overview of the festival selections to help you pick your lineup.
'Rotting in the Sun' - a hedonistic, nihilistic gay comedy
Chilean director Sebastián Silva has made a career out of the unpredictable and the absurd with films like "The Maid," "Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus," and "Nasty Baby." For his latest film, Silva turns the camera on himself, crafting a portrait of an unfulfilled artist trapped in a world of narcissism without end.
Dispatches from TIFF 2023, Part Four
The Hassle’s Kyle Amato has been on the ground for the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival – check out his previous dispatches here, here, and here! Quiz Lady dir. Jessica Yu I knew from the above image alone that I’d have fun with this film. Sandra Oh gets to be the crazy one? I’m in. And I was right – Quiz Lady is very fun and very sweet, a breezy comedy with only a couple of weak set pieces (another unwilling drug tripping sequence? enough!!).
Dispatches from TIFF 2023, Part Three
The Hassle’s Kyle Amato is on the ground for the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival – watch this space for further dispatches! Boy Kills World dir. Moritz Mohr It wouldn’t be a film festival if you don’t see something stunningly incompetent and offensive to the art of filmmaking.
Dispatches from TIFF 2023, Part Two
The Hassle’s Kyle Amato is on the ground for the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival – watch this space for further dispatches! North Star dir. Kristin Scott Thomas Three sisters reconnect for their mother’s third wedding, hoping this one doesn’t end up dying on her too.
Dispatches from TIFF 2023, Part One
The Hassle’s Kyle Amato is on the ground for the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival – watch this space for further dispatches! The Royal Hotel dir. Kitty Green Another fun entry in the anti-Australian tourism genre, Kitty Green’s followup to The Assistant is a similarly harsh look at the disgusting world of male aggression and presumptions.
REVIEW: My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3 (2023) dir. Nia Vardalos
Opa! The Portokalos family is back for the third installment of the My Big Fat Greek Wedding franchise. I know what you’re thinking: there was a second one? And the answer is yes! It came out in 2016! I watched it last month and it was cute. This time, Nia Vardalos is behind the camera and taking the whole family to Greece! As always, hijinks ensue, lavish meals are prepared, and running gags are driven into the ground. It’s cinematic counter-programming at its finest.
REVIEW: Red, White & Royal Blue (2023) dir. Matthew Lopez
Starting with the positive, Red, White & Royal Blue avoids the biggest red flag of all recent mainstream gay media: there are no Hamilton references! Let’s celebrate that! Unfortunately, this thing barely passes as a real movie. I felt like I was trapped in an episode of The Other Two, watching Cary Dubek watching this film and realizing he was passed over for the role of the reporter, or something.
REVIEW: Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One (2023) dir. Christopher McQuarrie
After saving movie theaters last summer with Top Gun: Maverick, a movie that is fine but which felt like a masterpiece by starring actual human beings in actual locations, Tom Cruise is back with the long-awaited and long delayed seventh installment in the Mission: Impossible series. Dead Reckoning Part One is less a successor to Fallout than to the original De Palma film, with many parallels that make this feel like Ethan Hunt’s story is coming full circle.
REVIEW: Joy Ride (2023) dir. Adele Lim
Film, Film Review Opens Friday, 7/7 by Kyle Amato While the studio comedy seems to be dying out, this summer we have two potential saviors of the genre. No Hard Feelings with Jennifer Lawrence seems to be a goofy throwback to the sex comedies of the mid-aughts (hopefully I’ll get to see it soon!), while the subject of this review, Joy Ride, is more of an Asian-American twist on Eurotrip or The Hangover.
REVIEW: Nimona (2023) dir. Nick Bruno & Troy Quane
Film, Film Review The long-awaited adaptation is zippy and as deceptively deep as its protagonist by Kyle Amato Originally a webcomic, then a bestseller, then trapped in development hell, Nimona’s journey to exist at all threatens to be more interesting than the film itself. Thankfully, the charm of ND Stevenson’s original comic shines throughout this animated movie, a story that’s able to expand on themes the author himself did not realize it was about while writing it.
BLU-RAY REVIEW: Pasolini 101 - The Criterion Collection
In many ways, product review has always been my dream. As anyone who has entered my home knows, I am a meticulous curator of my movies with a structure that only makes sense to me or you if I explain it for fifteen minutes. When I’m considering a purchase, there are a few things I need to know: how big is it? Does it fit my shelf? Is the restoration good? Does it have new special features or ones that were only available on the Laserdisc edition? Most importantly, does it have a slipcover?
REVIEW: No Hard Feelings (2023) dir. Gene Stupnitsky
Film, Film Review Jennifer Lawrence is here to save summer with an R-rated comic delight by Kyle Amato Why does this film, a broad, raunchy sex comedy with a big name and a big heart, feel so special and rare? From what I’m told, we used to get a film like this every week.
REVIEW: Elemental (2023) dir. Peter Sohn
Pixar is currently in what we’ll generously call an “awkward phase.” While Lucaand Turning Redshow that Pixar is still invested in new talent, any attempts at commercial success are falling flat. You already forgot about Lightyear, the only Pixar film released theatrically post-covid. What can make Pixar relevant again? Sadly, it won’t be Elemental, a technically impressive film that is also painfully generic, looking more like a parody of Pixar work than an actual story.
INTERVIEW: Pixar Animator Becki Tower on ‘ELEMENTAL’
Last Friday I had the privilege of speaking with veteran Pixar Character Animator Becki Tower. Tower, who has been working on Pixar features since Up (2009), broke down how animation works, what makes a character come to life, and how Elemental, the latest Pixar film which stars a girl made of fire and a boy made of water, broke new ground in animation beyond what we can even comprehend! BOSTON HASSLE: I saw Elemental last night and I still don’t understand how it worked.
REVIEW: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) dir. Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson
It’s hard to overstate the impact Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has had on the world of western animation since it was released in December of 2018. The film’s unique look inspired multiple imitators with varying levels of success, including last year’s Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. While we seem to be hitting a sort of audience fatigue with superhero films (hopefully), enthusiasm for the return of Miles Morales has not waned.
IFFB REVIEWS: Afire (2023) dir. Christian Petzold & Past Lives (2023) dir. Celine Song
Afire (2023) dir. Christian Petzold After watching Undine at IFFBoston Fall Focus 2020 and Phoenix a few months later, I’ve found myself very invested in the career of German director Christian Petzold. While I still need to see his earlier work, I loved his latest film Afire, a pitch-black comedy filled with humor dry as the forest where our protagonists are having one of the worst vacations depicted on the big screen.
REVIEW: Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. (2023) dir. Kelly Fremon Craig
Film, Film Review Rachel McAdams Best Supporting Actress Campaign Begins Now by Kyle Amato There are few novels as important or as timeless as Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. Judy Blume’s classic is a realistic look at the trials and tribulations of a young girl having a crisis of mind, body, and faith, something readers didn’t even know they craved.
REVIEW: Showing Up (2023) dir. Kelly Reichardt
Film, Film Review Art hurts. by Kyle Amato Lizzy (Michelle Williams) is stressed. Her sculpture exhibition is in a week and she still hasn’t finished every piece. Her hot water is broken and her friend and landlord Jo (Hong Chau) still hasn’t fixed it, as she’s preparing for two shows of her own.
REVIEW: Suzume (2023) dir. Makoto Shinkai
Director Makoto Shinkai (Your Name, Weathering with You) loves a select few things: the rain, the sky, McDonald’s product placement, and love itself. His latest film, Suzume, has all of those things, but the man has tamped down his most out-of-control impulses I was worried he could no longer do. Weathering saw him doubling down on everything that made Your Name a success to the point of exhaustion; Suzume manages to tell a similarly apocalyptic tale with a gentler, cartoonier touch.
REVIEW: The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) dir. Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic
Here we go! After years of rumors, false starts, and residual shame from the 1993 film (which I do not hate), Nintendo has finally released a Mario movie with the help of Illumination, a studio that has never made a good movie. Luckily for all of us, The Super Mario Bros. Movie is actually not terrible, a pleasant enough animated rendering of the adventures of Mario and Luigi in the Mushroom Kingdom.
REVIEW: Air (2023) dir. Ben Affleck
Close Search Film, Film Review Ben Affleck reignites his passion for filmmaking with this lively sports drama by Kyle Amato Boston’s favorite son Ben Affleck has spent the better part of the past decade lost in the wilderness. After winning Best Picture with Argo, he was cast as Batman in whatever the hell was going on at DC, a move that sent him spiraling. While being meme’d every time he stepped outside, Affleck has been trying to figure out what he’s supposed to do next.
BUFF REVIEW: Destination- A Selection of Animated Shorts
This year, the Boston Underground Film Festival’s animated short film program brought us some of the trippiest and most tactile moments of creativity BUFF has ever seen. Each short took a different type of animation and stretched the limits of what we thought possible. While some shorts contain mature themes or scary moments, they could be viewed by anyone interested in the art of animation’s future. The Flypaper Spectacular dir.
BUFF REVIEW: Sick of Myself (2022) dir. Kristoffer Borgli
Perhaps director Kristoffer Borgli saw The Worst Person in the Worldas a challenge. This tale of a woman in Oslo has less catharsis and more seeping wounds, but similar send-ups of the ludicrousness of modern society. Signe (Kristine Kujath Thorp) is a woman dissatisfied with her artist boyfriend Thomas (Eirik Sæther), who is suddenly experiencing success with his work. She stews over this at her barista job when a woman is attacked by a dog, falling into her arms in a bloody heap.
REVIEW: Eyeballs in the Darkness (2023) dir. Albert Birney
Fresh off his Sundance hit Strawberry Mansion, Albert Birney has returned to the world of Tux and Fanny, crafting an ambitious sequel titled Eyeballs in the Darkness that takes the characters on new adventures. For the uninitiated, Tux (pink) and Fanny (purple) are Russian-speaking best friends who experience both the mundane and the surreal on a daily basis. They approach every new obstacle with curiosity and good humor, even when mortal peril abounds.
INTERVIEW: "Eyeballs in the Darkness" Director Albert Birney
Earlier this month I spoke with Albert Birney, director of Eyeballs in the Darkness, the sequel to Tux and Fanny. His work spans multiple genres, animation styles, and formats – Eyeballs is no exception. We talk about Tux and Fanny’s origins, stop motion, making art for yourself, and of course, Tim Tooth. BOSTON HASSLE: There’s so much going on in Eyeballs in the Darkness. I feel like I’m entrenched in Tux and Fanny’s world now. I just want to start from the beginning.
Sundance Film Festival 2023: Dispatch, Part Two
Film, Film Review A cult, a wrestler, a bad date, an aunt, and two kooky ladies by Kyle Amato AUM: The Cult at the End of the World dir. Ben Braun and Chiaki Yanagimoto A panic-inducing documentary about a Japanese cult that unleashed chemical attacks on Tokyo’s subways. This could have, and probably should have been a miniseries, as it feels like we haven’t even scratched the surface of the cult’s long and terrifying history of fear mongering and murder.
(1/13-2/2) (Some of) The Best of 2022
It’s inevitable: that feeling, as the calendar year draws to a close and awards season heads into full swing, that I need to catch up. Fortunately, this time of year also brings the Brattle Theatre’s “(Some of) The Best Of” series, a painstakingly curated program of more than two dozen of the previous year’s finest cinematic offerings, all presented where they belong– on the big screen.
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